Competition Time

Name the funny men who once entertained kings and queens at court? Contestant: Lepers. Yes folks it's competition time and OFCOM have mostly been looking at naughty radio stations who have been misleading their poor listeners into thinking they are getting a fair chance at taking part in a competition.

As the creator and auditor (With a little help from Rob 'Compliance' Hooker) of the BIG Quiz with Gary King (pic)- a daily quiz show on LBC which was on air in the middle of the great premium phone-gate scandal - here are a few words of wisdom:

First of all your comp has to be fair and seen to be fair.  Your answer has to be correct and there should not be other equally valid answers.  The answer ideally is one word long avoids religion or any other controversy.

There should be just one way of taking part - it is much easier to make the comp fair if they can only text or only phone or only email.  If you have multiple paths you have multiple probs.

The prize should be worth it - frankly these days if its a bit of PR sh*t like a DVD or CD don't do it - the compliance doesn't make it worth it.  Also mentioning the prize giver can quite easily turn into sponsor message or worse an ad.  So it's a minefield best avoided.

Stick terms and conditions on the website and make sure you update them.  I changed a bit of the BIG Quiz and two weeks in looked at the T&C's and they were now wrong! And I had to change them. Then tell your audience all the time where to find the T&Cs and all imaging and all scripts should have ANY cost involved to take part.

This month OFCOM has spanked the bottoms of a number of radio stations including TalkSport who has a very red sore arse this morning and also a station that promised you could get something for 29.99 when you actually had to pay an additional levy so they were misleading at best lying to their listeners at worst - and you don't want to be doing that!